Image sensors have become ubiquitous. They are widely used in digital still cameras, cellular phones, security cameras, medical, automobile, and other applications. The technology used to manufacture image sensors, and in particular CMOS image sensors, has continued to advance at great pace. For example, the demands of higher resolution and lower power consumption have encouraged the further miniaturization and integration of the image sensor.
As the pixels become smaller, the surface area that can receive incident light is also reduced. The pixel typically has a light-sensing element, such as a photodiode, which receives incident light and produces a signal in relation to the amount of incident light. Thus, as the pixel area (and thus the photodiode area) decreases, the well capacity of the photodiode also becomes smaller.
One prior art structure of a photodiode that has enhanced well capacity comprises a shallow N− layer in a P-type region or substrate. A P+ pinning layer is then formed over the shallow N− layer. The P+ pinning layer is universally formed by implanting boron, because of boron's relatively good solid solubility.
This structure is known as a pinned photodiode and has relatively high well capacity, but sometimes at the expense of “dark current” performance and excess “hot pixel” defects. Further, because of the statistical nature of dopant implantation, the local concentration of an implanted dopant, such as the dopant for the N− layer, may vary spacially. In some cases, it is probable that a higher than average number of n-type ions are implanted near the silicon surface. This generates a local n-type region that punches into the surface P+ pinning region and can result in a local increase in dark current and hot pixel defect density.